Bono Did it Better

I need to get this off my chest. So, I was listening to the Christian radio station this afternoon and this is what I hear: "Coming up next is Chris Tomlin with Where the Streets Have No Name." What? Why?? Please tell me you're joking. I proceeded to listen to it b/c I just had to ...kind of like a train wreck. No one needs to cover U2. . . EVER. There are some great Christian artists out there. But, it is a huge pet peeve of mine when country or Christian artists cover other artists' songs. It always sounds ridiculous and you just wish you could hear the real artist singing it. That's all, I feel better now. Pin It

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree. . .

Well, it is Christmas time at our house! Oh, how I love the Christmas season. Thursday night we started taking down the fall decorations and started putting up the Christmas ones. We finally got everything done today. Well, by "we," I mean "I." AJ and the boys put up the tree and strung the lights. The boys helped me arrange the ornaments. When they weren't looking, I moved them around. Otherwise, our tree would have fallen over with all the ornaments on the bottom foot of the tree. Thankfully, they didn't notice. They were just excited to get to handle all the shiny ornaments!

Here they are, proud as can be of the tree. :)
Avery had been asking to make paper chains. So, yesterday we made Christmas paper chains to hang in his room & the office.

AJ says (jokingly) that it looks like Santa threw up on our front porch. Thanks honey. :) I love it by the way. I have always wanted a little tree for the front porch. They're so cheap the day after thanksgiving, I pretty much had no choice but to get one.

This is the window that I decorate for each season. I will put all the Christmas cards we receive throughout the season around the edges.

Back door wreath...

We even did a little tree for the boys' bathroom. This was really fun. We picked out a little mini tree at hobby lobby (again cheap, day after thanksgiving). They picked out some small blue ornaments as well. Then we came home and decorated it together. I already had the little bucket in their bathroom w/ Q-tips it. So we just stuck the tree down in it (minus the Q-tips). I had some marabou left over from hair bows so we wound that around it to look like snow. The boys (and me too) had so much fun with this. They were so proud. When AJ got home from work, Avery came running out of the bathroom with it, saying, "look, look what we did!" So cute!

Avery and Finley are constantly singing "Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree." We watched Swiss Family Robinson as a family last week and they have been singing it ever since then. I think Avery knows more words from it than I do!

Pin It

Christmas Parade, Fayetteville Style

Last Saturday night was the Fayetteville Christmas parade and lighting of the square. The Square all lit up is beautiful, by the way. There are so many lights. So the parade was . . . interesting. I have to say, growing up in Siloam Springs, we had the best Christmas parade. Although, I don't think I appreciated it as much then as I do now. I used to LOVE going to the Christmas parade. All the businesses would open up and serve hot chocolate and snacks. There were tons of creative floats and of course several marching bands and hometown beauty queens. So this parade...was a bit different. It was somewhat disappointing for A.J. and I but not at all for the boys, they don't know any different. It does make me miss a small town though. Anyhow, back to the parade. So, when we first get there, we see these:
There were about 5 or 6 of these 12 feet tall "people" dancing around. Were they left over from the Marti Gras parade? Ummm....why? Only in Fayetteville. By the way, they kept coming up to the boys, who did not appreciate them!

Pretty soon they lit the square which was great and then the parade started. It was half Christmas parade, and half "go hogs" parade. Seriously...they called the hogs. Yep. There was maybe two "real" floats. The other things were businesses advertising by driving their business vehicle with snowflake window clings. Also there was a razorback shaped car that drove by calling the hogs. The boys were actually pretty fascinated by that. I mean, who wouldn't be fascinated by a car shaped like a giant red pig?

So, here is how Finley view the parade:
After the parade we walked around the square. There were lots of vendors to look at. We will probably go back to the square on a nice night. They will have carriage rides, pony rides, and Santa all through the season.
Here are me & the boys...sorry about all the red eye....

AJ's turn...

The boys got to sit in Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. This was the highlight of the evening. There was a really short line so that helped. The Santa was so sweet to them and took the time to listen to what they wanted. Also Bedford was taking photos for free & we just have to go pick them up sometime. Avery told Santa that he wanted a toy gun (great) and Finley told him he wanted a baseball. Finley says that every time. So funny. By the by, does the Santa look a little albino to anyone else??

Telling Santa what they want . . .

The "elf" gave them each a Christmas tree Little Debbie. Here they are enjoying their treat!

So, back to reality...tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm cooking the turkey! I will let you know how it turns out! To all my faithful readers, have a wonderful Thanksgivng!

Pin It

Fall Pictures, part deux

Last weekend we went to the park and then played around throwing rocks in the creek, hiking around the trees, and finding pretty leaves. Fall in Arkansas is just so beautiful. The trees are bright, vibrant shades of red, orange, & yellow. It has been fun collecting the colorful leaves with the boys. It's such an easy way to teach about God's handiwork. Here are a few pictures of our morning.
Avery leading Finley into the "woods." Finley had to find a walking stick. :)

My sweet boys....

Pin It

Christmas Open House

This morning Emily and I and some other ladies had a Christmas Open House. It was a lot of fun. This was our last "craft show" for the season. It was so much fun that we have definitely decided to do it again in the spring. We have had 4 craft shows this fall alone so we have been busy! It has been fun but we are both ready for a rest. It is time to focus on some other things. Especially Christmas! I need to spend my spare time making Christmas presents and tending to my house that has been pretty neglected lately.

Reasons I like the Open House as compared to the traditional craft show:
1. the hours: the Open house was 9-1 today, as compared to all weekend long.
2. sitting around all morning drinking coffee & eating yummy snacks
3. sitting around all morning talking with other ladies
4. profitable

So here are some pictures....
This is the food buffet. We had coffee, spiced tea, spinach dip in a bread bowl, pretzel sticks, fancy chex mix, pumpkin roll, marinated olives, pumpkin dip w/ ginger snaps for dipping, poppy seed straws, & sausage balls. YUM-O.
Here is the table with Christmas items...

Scrapbooks, nap mats, burp cloths...

my hair bows....

more burp cloths....

various items, including my taggies...

Thanks to everyone who came, it was great to visit! Also, thanks to my sweet husband for a great morning off, and also to the Kennedy's for taking care of Finley for awhile!

Pin It

A Pirate's Life for Me, YO HO!

First of all I want to say that Avery read his first 2 books this morning!! I have been working on "preschool" stuff with him on and off for a couple of years. I have to say that lately I have not been very consistent with it. Last year I had a great routine going where I did preschool with him every morning. In fact, when Finley was born, I started doing "preschool" with Avery while Finley took his morning nap. I kept it up pretty good until this past summer hit, we totally quit doing anything and I have had the hardest time picking it back up. Avery loves to do it, but somehow, it just gets crowded out. I have been trying desperately to get back in the groove....which means I have been doing it about once or twice a week. We have been doing letters and their sounds for a while now so I decided to see if we could put it together and start reading. I got some Bob books from the library. So this morning Avery read the first two books! He did really well and was excited that he was reading. I let him put stickers on this reading log we have. I know we are definitely going to have to keep practicing so he doesn't forget how to do it. It's really all on me, how disciplined I am to take the time to sit down and help him. I struggle so much with consistency. I hate that. I feel so much better when we are in a groove with a schedule, and I just can't seem to get it together lately.

In other news...about a month ago I picked up some pirate "costumes" at the Dollar tree. They're pretty cheapo but I knew the boys would have fun with them. I was saving them for the right time. So, Sunday night we got them out. The boys were SOOO excited. They had so much fun dressing up and playing pirates. They've pretty much worn them every moment we've been home since then. Avery wanted to sleep with his sword yesterday. I think AJ had almost as much fun as they did, playing with the fake earring. I wish I had a picture of it. Every time I looked at him, he had the earring in a different spot. . . his ear, his nose, his lip...he thought he was pretty funny.

Pin It

Woo Pig Sooie!!

We had another weekend full of family fun. On Friday night we went to the Razorback basketball game. AJ called me at almost 5:00 and told me he got seats in Arvest's box for the Razorback game. Arvest is such a great company and has been such a blessing for AJ to work for. It is wonderful to see AJ actually enjoy his work and be home at night and on weekends as well! Anyhow, the lady that had the box seats couldn't go, so she gave the 4 tickets to AJ. It was really fun. They had food and drinks provided so that was nice. The boys really enjoyed yelling "Go Hogs!" They also loved calling the hogs with the fans, although,it was a little loud for Finley, he kept covering his ears. Avery loved watching the cheerleaders. When he found out there were boy cheerleaders he was very excited. He said, "When I get tall as daddy, I'm gonna be a cheerleader." Hmm....I will remind him of that someday.

Here are the boys calling the hogs!

We also got tickets to go to another game in a couple of weeks...this time it will be just AJ and I...if we can find a babysitter on the Saturday after thanksgiving! Any takers??!! :)

Pin It

Spidey & Rock Star

So I am SOOOOO glad that Halloween is over. It really is a useless holiday and I just really hate it. I am so glad that stores are getting rid of all the ghosts, goblins, & witches. If I never see another scream mask, it will be too soon. However my kids did dress up...THREE times. They had dress up days twice at Kids Day Out. Then on Halloween, my good friend Karen and her husband, Bill, had a party at their house. It was good to hang out with them and drink some hot cocoa. They had a constant stream of kids trick or treating. The kids absolutely loved handing out candy to them. I was amazed at what some people dress their children as. There was one boy dressed up as a beer keg. Seriously. We thought it was a tin man at first, but no, he was a beer keg. Super.

So I never could convince Finley to be a "rock and roll star," so I had one cutie patootie spider man and one blue haired rock star.


Here are my boys on their first dress up day. No, Finley cannot see out of the eye mask.

"Rock On, Dude"...is what Avery constantly said...do not know where he learned it.

Spiderman in galoshes. I cut the eyeholes of his mask some more, so he can actually see out.

Here are the boys at Karen's party. They mostly hovered around the candy trunk. Yep, a trunk filled to the brim with candy. The boys really didn't know what to do with themselves.

Finley is so excited that people are handing him candy...and he has no idea why.

Digging through the candy bags...

I'm glad the boys had fun...now lets move on to Thanksgiving, a real holiday!

Pin It

Back to the E.R.

So today was a lousy day. Just one of those days where I was counting the hours/minutes until AJ got home. Well, he finally arrived home and it was time for the weekend to begin! We decide to take the kids to the mall. They are both so excited and screaming, "Yeah! The Mall! The Mall!" I'm looking forward to some time sitting in the play area while they run their little hearts out and I can talk with my husband, maybe even run in a few stores. Then we would go eat some food court dinner, head home, put the boys to bed and have a relaxing evening watching a movie, cuddling on the couch.

Nope, that was not to be.

We spent the evening in the E.R. Literally, the entire evening. We just got home around 9:30. AJ's in bed reading and I'm in here reading people's blogs. Romantic, eh?

So, as we were getting the boys dressed and ready to walk out the door, Finley slams, I mean, SLAMS, Avery's finger in the bathroom door. They were playing and running around our bedroom and then Finley slammed our bathroom door in Avery's face. I hear Avery screaming but I just think he's mad that Finley slammed the door in his face. It was like slow motion as AJ and I simultaneously realize that he's screaming because his finger's stuck in the door. Oh the horror! I knew it hurt bad, he was shaking and just screaming his poor little head off. So, we got ice and quickly got the boys shoes on and headed for the Emergency room. It was already swollen up pretty good and bright read and kind of dented looking. I sat in the back with the boys and tried to comfort Avery on the way there. I was hoping that they weren't going to call DHS when we got there, since we were just there this summer for Avery breaking his arm. Apparently going there once every 3 months is no big deal in the E.R. where some people come every 3 or 4 days!

When we got there, they had this red sign up saying they were having unusually high volume of people and the wait would be 4-8hours. great. There were some CRAZIES in the waiting room with us. It was interesting, to say the least. AJ and Finley left to get us some dinner and we began our wait. It wasn't horrible though. We got some coloring sheets and passed the time by staring at the "crazies." AJ says I stare worse than the boys. ;)

Anyhow, we finally got x-rays and saw a doctor and Praise Jesus, it wasn't broken. AJ was praying out against a broken bone all night, we just really didn't want Avery to have another broken bone and in his right hand again.

So, that was a fitting end, to my day I guess. Just another day in the life of a mom of boys.

Here's hoping tomorrow will be better..... Pin It